Thoughts on Gay Marriage

I had not given much attention to the matter of gay marriage until it really impacted those I knew and cared about. About two years ago I learned that a former roommate and close friend of mine from BYU had announced he was gay. Despite living in the same house with this friend for 3 years it never once crossed my mind that he was homosexual. He had hid his private emotions from us completely. However I did know him to be one of the most compassionate and considerate human beings I had ever met. I was repeatedly impressed by the great efforts he made to improve the lives of those around him and how much patience and kindness he showed to family and friends.

When I learned that he was gay I was overcome with great sadness. Admittedly some of the sadness was because of the biological difficulties a gay man faces, like being able to have children, since I had always known he would make a fantastic father. But I also felt an overwhelming sadness for all those years growing up in the Church where he must have been incredibly burdened with guilt and sadness wondering what he had done to feel the way he felt and how he would ever change and/or be accepted. I felt terrible for all the hours he had listened to all my problems when he must have been dying inside from feeling he couldn't talk to anyone about his internal struggle. And worst of all I felt terrible knowing that if he had talked to me while we had been at BYU I wouldn't have been very accepting or helpful.

However for all the sadness I was grateful that my friend had accepted who he was and embraced a path that seemed to offer him greater happiness. He had found a partner that, like him, wanted to eventually raise a family and since they couldn't marry they had a commitment ceremony. While I didn't have the opportunity to attend the ceremony I did meet his partner and he seemed like a great guy and most importantly knowing my friend I'm sure he would only select someone who reflected his own excellent character.

Marriage comes with an incredible amount of privileges. It comes with many privileges that we might consider superficial, such as tax breaks or the ability to easily transfer property, but it also comes with privileges of remarkable individual and social trust, such as joint guardianship of children. It is perhaps something we take too lightly in providing to heterosexuals. Anyone who can find a partner of the opposite sex can simply walk into the county offices and with twenty dollars be offered all the social privileges of marriage regardless of the level of responsbility they've demonstrated or the manner of crimes they've committed. There is certainly still all too many for whom marriage is simply a means of attaining wealth, citizenship, power or some other unworthy goal. Yet I think of my friend and other gays who I have met since then who seek marriage. They seek to affirm their relationship with their lifelong partner who they love and trust. They seek the social trust and ability to raise a family that I know they would carry out as well or better than the vast majority of heterosexual spouses. While I know there will be those homosexuals, like all too many heterosexuals, who mess up marriage and who use it's social advantages to attain ignoble ends there are so many gay men and women who, like my friend, have demonstrated themselves far more worthy of that social endowment than any of us. I think the institution of marriage would only be strengthened and enriched to be shared by such men and women.